Friday, 14 June 2013

Catching up

Wow a lot of time has passed since our enervating workshop with Marianne Hatton. But with being charged sometimes comes the opposite reaction of being drained. Getting ready for something exciting has the impact of revving up your emotional engine to high speed. But either you cannot sustain the speeds or you run out of fuel.

Well this happened to me in part because with the concentration on the workshop and the fun, other things got lost. And then they got found and seemed overwhelming. It is amazing how little things find voices to keep saying 'do me now'. 'Do not forget me'. In the spring of the year this starts to include the garden. Some things cannot wait so the jostling activity got revved up. But my energy was not equal to the task. As a result my engine stalled. This included quilting which is normally a solace. It became a chore joining the clamoring chorus.

As well two friends suffered severe emotional hammering on their hearts. One cannot have friends who are important without feeling a share in any pain. Because they are important you relate and you suffer with them. Such a happening is life and in life some things take absolute priority and supporting friends is a major priority.

But it is not all gloom and doom. After shutting out everything for two days and escaping into books which have a beginning and middle and a happy ending the world was less savage. The sun shone and the garden was given some attention (bloody hard work) to get it off my back. Some chores got done. Some only. I may be a bit nuts but not entirely crazy. I took out a quilt that had been cut and I have pieced it. It will join the pile to be quilted but at least one bit of one pile has gotten moved along the assembly line. And I got the news an art quilt I did has been accepted in a juried show. Check out the site www.arthitsthewall.com for dates and times of the show. This is a first. It helped to lift me over the hurdle.

So yesterday I worked on my quilting frame on a gorgeous quilt for a customer who fortunately did not need it immediately so I could have my meltdown in relative peace. It has been raining for close to a week; the kitchen floor is in constant battle with muddy dog prints; it is cold enough in June for a fire but Hortense and I had a lot of fun with bright colours and the completion of several rows on the quilt. I am enjoying the wool batting. The light coming from the side of the frame through the window highlights the lovely hills and valleys of the quilting. The batting is great to work with. It is light; it gives loft without being like a perm gone wrong which polyester is; it stitches easily and it rolls with the quilt top and bottom with getting caught or stretching as some cottons do. The quilt has over 2,000 pieces in it so quilting has to be slow and careful to maintain good stitch quality and not get hung up on meeting seams. Hortense and I are working together to see that all the pieces stay flat and the quilting stays regular. It is a curvy pattern I designed after a sewing machine stitch and it offsets the angles and squares of the quilt. So back today to finish I hope and to think about starting another quilt top which has beautiful fabric just screaming to be made into a French braid. So is there something good about a rainy day.

Yikes. Just heard the grass calling. Ah well. It is too wet for that but not for quilting.